Nine pupils from Stonar’s Sixth Form (including seven Wiltshire teenagers) travelled out to Romania during the October half term, accompanied by school nurse, Sister Sue Day and Registrar Karen Ibbott. A large shanty town has sprung up next to the city of Iasi, and this was their destination.
Working with Trowbridge-based charity, People Against Poverty, the girls undertook a building project to construct a new home for a single mother and her three children, who had been living in a rat and flea-infested shack with a mud floor and leaky roof.
The pupils are responsible for their own fundraising, this year raising £5.600 for their projects. As well as purchasing all the building materials for the house, this money went towards the following:
• The drilling of 2 wells in the Shanty Town to provide water nearer than the 1 mile they have to walk now
• The Medical Centre, set up by Sister Day in 2005, which was in need of additional supplies
• Food parcels which the girls bought and distributed in the shanty town to families in need
• The child feeding programme
• A shopping trip with 11 children from the town’s Phantom ghetto block to buy each child a pair of winter boots.
• Activities for the arts and craft session which the girls organised with a group of 20 children between the ages of 6 and 12
Commenting on the experience, Samona Baptiste spoke for the group at the presentation to parents, “Mother Theresa once said, ‘We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.’
“When we stepped out of our comfortable world and saw the scale of poverty in Romania we all felt that we weren’t really going to be able to make a difference. What we soon realised was that building relationships was as important as building a house. I speak for all of us at Stonar School when I say that this was without doubt one of the best experiences we have ever had and it will stay with us forever.
“We became that drop in a huge ocean but we have come home knowing that we have made a difference. In fact we are not sure whose lives have been changed the most, those we have left behind or us.”
This is the seventh year that Stonar pupils have visited Romania with the first trip out taking place in 2004. The Romania expedition, along with other opportunities and overseas trips allows Stonar pupils to move out of their comfort zones and embrace new challenges. To date the monies raised for the MedicalCentre and the Challenge programmes is in excess of£25,000.
The Romania Challenge 2011 team was:
Sister Sue Day, School Nurse
Karen Ibbott, Registrar
Emma Walker, Bath
Sarah Askew, Trowbridge
Francesca Lewis, Trowbridge
Rhiannon Stevenson, Trowbridge Emma Double, Chippenham
Rebecca Schofield, Westbury
Katie Tucker, Holt
Samona Baptiste, Shropshire
Helena Stevenson, Suffolk